We conduct a volatility decomposition to identify the source of performance differences between low volatility and high volatility mutual funds. Higher return covariances between fund holdings is associated with more fund-level exposure to the idiosyncratic volatility effect. The average...

We use the geographically-constrained holdings of single-state municipal-bond mutual funds in order to compare the performance of local and non-local mutual fund managers. In general, we find that local managers display worse performance and significantly different risk profiles than non-local...

We examine how investment advisors guide the decision-making process of mutual fund investors by comparing the flow-performance sensitivity of no-load funds and the three main classes of load fund shares, conditional on the state of the market. We show that load investors are more sensitive to...

We explore how the US presidential effect in stock prices is connected to the US presidential effect in foreign exchange returns to the US dollar. Our results show that the existence of a presidential effect in stock returns depends on how a firm's stock returns are associated with changes in...

Empirical research on the dynamics of the US dollar price of gold has largely focused on the macroeconomic influence of developed economies and gold's role as a safe haven during times of market turmoil. However, the economies of several emerging markets now account for a substantial fraction of...

Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are a relatively new form of security design that appear similar to exchange-traded funds (ETFs), but with no underlying portfolio holdings. We identify those characteristics of ETNs that are distinct from ETFs, and we test which ETN characteristics are most...

We conduct a volatility decomposition to identify the source of performance differences between low volatility and high volatility mutual funds. Our procedure demonstrates how security-level variances and covariances lead to idiosyncratic volatility effects at the portfolio level. We show that a...

Capacity constraints limit the profits of some investment strategies, while other strategies are more scalable. We develop a dollar-weighted return measure that parses the factor timing by investors and a strategy's capacity constraints. We find that actively managed funds exhibit significant...

We use the introduction of exchange-traded notes (ETNs) as a way to examine which characteristics of institutional investors' preferences are generalizable across new types of security design, as well as to infer which of the novel characteristics of ETN are in demand from institutions. As with...